Olympics 2010 Closing

As the Winter Olympic Games closed in Vancouver and the flag passes to Russia for the 2014 Games to be held in Sochi, top Russian leaders were conspicuously absent.

President Dmitry Medvedev had called for resignation of sports officials responsible for the mediocre performance in Vancouver, and declaring a change was needed to achieve better results at Sochi.


In figure skating, this is the first time since 1970, when the Soviet Union joined the Figure Skating event at the Olympics, that Russia (or the Union) did not win a gold.

Gold favorite Evgeni Plushenko was upset by American Evan Lycasek, dance team Oksana Dominia and Maxim Shabalin managed a Bronze, Russian pair Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov finished a disappointing fourth, and the Russian ladies were nowhere near the podium.

Russia won 3 Golds and a total of 15 medals overall, putting it in 6th place of the Medal standings of the 2010 Olympics.

Some video clips of the closing ceremonies on Mahalo
http://www.mahalo.com/2010-olympics-closing-ceremony